Month: March 2015

In no particular order, here are 5 things I hate to hear from non-musicians (NM).

1. Heah, you must play a lot of instruments!

NM, playing and mastering one string is difficult enough furthermore multiple instruments. Instruments are not like like condoms, you do not burst the package and get instant gratification. When you hear someone playing, they have spent untold hours just trying to make their instrument coherent. People that readily tell you they play 5 instruments professionally are not to be trusted with your family members.

2. You don’t know that song? What kind of musician are you?

Dear NM, in case you didn’t realise, music has been around since Adam sung Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree to Eve. This means that there are millions upon millions of songs and since musicians are not DJs, it is highly unlikely they know all of them. In fact, learning a song is once again a time consuming exercise and in the absence of eternal life, musicians only know a mere fraction of what is out there. Although, even if musicians had eternal life, many won’t dedicate their time to learning Hit Me Baby one More time the DJ Shakukzki remix.

3. Oh, you must want to be famous!

Dear NM, not necessarily. The majority of musicians are doing gigs because they enjoy what they do and they are providing a service. Many of them are as comfortable with fame as the awkward accountants at award shows. Those musicians you see on TV are not the majority….trust me.

4. What else do you do for living?

This is perhaps the most common thing said to all artists (including me) which gets their underwear all twisted. If you admit to being a professional musician, chances are you don’t do anything else for a living because emailing, teaching, practicing, accounting, giggingand learning songs can be a little time consuming. However, I am sure NM that if most musicians gave up sleep they could fit in a medical job or two.

5. Your life must be exciting!

To end NM, let me debunk this myth. Much like the fame thing, the lives led by a few of our number distort our overall image. There are a huge number of fields within music with some being akin to sky diving off the Burj Khalifa while others are more like watching paint dry in the Arctic. So while you might be thinking sex, drugs and alcohol, most musicians are more like text, mugs and parasols.

So I believe that Joe shows conclusively that the songs are indeed different given his expert musical analysis. However, Joe’s expert ears were not part of the jury, instead the panel was probably made up of non-musicians whose opinions were ultimately similar to those expressed below:

“‘Got To Give It Up’ is one of my all time favs, had no idea these fools claimed original production and didn’t share royalties.” J Vincennes

The two Tweeters here are absolutely convinced Blurred Lines stole from Got to Give it Up, so why the discrepancy?

Once again, as in my other post, it is because musicians listen differently. So while Joe can analyse the chord changes and bass lines to the cheques come home, to others that stuff was not even THERE! In other words, to many non-musicians the aural similarities between the two tracks are blatant, while to musicians, the songs are obviously quite different. Who is right? Apparently the musicians are NOT, at least for now. So once again, let me repeat my summary from the last time, musicians listen differently.